MTG Salvation

Ahh, White Weenie. There are few decks more iconic in magic then that. The idea is to get a bunch of cheap white creature out and swing, on the same like as RDW, but utilizing a different cast of characters. It's been a while since we have seen that be a thing in modern, but why not start now? Here is the deck idea I came up with:



The gameplan is still the same, span out small creature and win. Thalia is good at combatting decks that play a lot of noncreature spells, Judge's Familiar is for Delver, Control, and Burn, as is Kor Firedancer. And yes, Aether Vial is as good as they say it is.

Any suggestions?

Might want to check out this thread

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/562814-wx-death-and-taxes

I believe this list could use some extra card advantage, or maybe a way to dodge removal or take back the game. Something like Proclamation of Rebirth, Emerge Unscathed or even Brave the Elements. I'm not a huge fan of Dismember there, and perhaps Æther Vial isn't at its prime on a list that can't accelerate into drawing cards. However, surely there's potential to it - Kor Firewalker is a beast, and perhaps you could add 1 or 2 Mirran Crusaders, but I'm not sure tbh.

I have a take on MonoWhite Exalted, currently looking like this:



It plays somewhat solid, but has some very clear weaknesses while sustaining a couple of good strengths. The lifegain is a general nuisance, and Soltari Priest is a mean wincon against all these Young Pyromancer tokens and Lightning Bolts. At least, it has been working alright.

I frequently play a white weenie list on MTGO with good success.



I tried a build without Arbiter for awhile but he simply steals to many games and randomly disrupts to many decks/strategies to cut. I would up the Horizon Canopy count to 3-4 if I owned them- they work great to deal with mana flood and the damage rarely matters. I'd also play another Brimaz if I owned it maindeck in place of a crusader. Other than that I am pretty happy with the build.

The sideboard fluxuates quite a bit but is one of the strongest aspects of the deck IMO. It currently looks like this:



Rest in Peace is most likely better than Jotun Grunt but I'm testing them out. In theory they up my threat density while hating on graveyard strategies. Purge is mostly for boggles and infect.

So far The deck seems to have game vs just about anything. I played death and taxes for a while but didn't enjoy the sometimes passive nature, this version is more straightforward and aggro centric which fits my play style and preference better.

I've made a few revisions since the banning of pod and treasure cruise and the shifting meta. The deck now looks like this:



I think 2 Horizon Canopy is the right number. Mirran has been upped to 3 maindecked and 1 board due to prevalence of The Rock.

Current sideboard:



Planning on testing 1x Anafenza in the MD once I get one, probably in place of the Judge's Familiar. The deck plays well and is consistent. Still struggling with splinter twin match up but it's not an auto loss.

A new white weenie list up on CFB that is less taxes and more aggro.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/a-champions-deck-returns-modern-white-weenie/
I put it together and promptly beat bloom titan. A couple cool bits: delay and meddling mage were both timely hosers. The deck comes out fast, gets wide, and has dudes that can move into the midrange. Fun. Part of me wants stony silence in the side, but I'll test as is before changing.

I recently (4/30/15) went 4-0 in a 66 player MTGO modern daily event. The deck I played:



I grudgingly chose to swap out the 2 Brave the Elements (and the singleton Judge's Familiar) for 3 main deck Relics due to the graveyard reliance of many of the upper tier decks I typically encounter on MTGO. BtE is a great card and may find its way back into the deck at some point but early testing with the relics has proved positive and at worse they just cantrip themselves away.

My sideboard for this event:



Because of the use of the Relics I chose to remove the anti-synergistic but more impactful Stoney Silence from the SB in favor of 2x Disenchants.

I played Abzan, G/R Tron, Grixis Delver, and Merfolk.

Round 1 Abzan. Game 1 he destroys me fast and easily with early IoK and thoughtseizing away my crusader and dropping Goyf/Lingering Souls. No Relic's show up and I die quickly. Game 2 is close but 2 Crusaders and a Serra Avenger and an active relic grind it out vs his army which consisted of a gold creature that had pro white and life link (the name escapes me). Game 3 I stick a Sword of Light and Shadow and coast to an easy win. Not surprisingly, Mirran Crusader and the Sword are MVPs inthis match up. Relic proved honorable mention. 2-1.

Round 2 vs G/R Tron. Game 1 and 2 Leonin and his best friend Ghost Quarter show up and do their job well, keeping him from ramping into to much. In game 2 he eventually gets a Wurmcoil in play but I have the path. 2-0.

Round 3 was vs Grixis Delver. Game 1 goes to me easily. Side in +2 RiP, 1 Crusader for -3 Honor of the Pure. Game 2 I get him to 1 life but he flips a delver and gets a Tasigur. I'm forced to cantrip a relic in an attempt to draw into some action but have no such luck. Game 3 he is stuck on 2 lands and I bait him with Thalia and he counters expectedly. I vial in Leonin and drop ghost quarter taking out his only land. From there its a pretty easy win.

Round 4 vs Merfolk. Game 1 he runs over me easily with lords galore and a huge vialed army. Game 2 I win in equally convincing fashion. Game 3 is very close but I am able to swing with a thalia, serra avenger, hero of bladehold, and student. He assigns blockers with his army but I have a PtE and mana left over to pay for curse catcher and spell pierce if he has it. I PtE a lord and my army takes out his clearing the way for the win.

Overall pretty pleased with the way the deck runs. Relic was very good and thanks to its ability to cantrip, never a dead draw. Still miss Brave the Elements but it can sometimes be a useless card (post wrath etc). I'd like to find a way to add 1-2 to the deck possibly in the future.

how did you find 8.5 tails? Would it be too mana intensive?

Quote from DustBunnyElemental »

how did you find 8.5 tails? Would it be too mana intensive?

8.5 is an ongoing experiment and thus far I've found him pretty decent. Yes he is mana intensive but He's great as a surprise vial trick with mana to spare. I think he's fine as a one of but he is one of the first things sided out in a variety of match ups (tron, affinity, burn, any sort of combo). I find it very good in any match up where my opponent sports a fair amount of spot removal.

Current configuration.



sideboard:



Basically Dryads in for relics and more Hushwing. Dryads are great in the mtgo delver obsessed meta. Still missing BtE. A one of Mana Tithe seems like fun but probably to cute. Added an additional disenchant for a Kataki due to the (seemingly) decline of affinity but rise of ensnaring bridge which shuts us down cold. Mirran is still a house vs a ton of decks. Anyway, work in progress but the core is strong and competetive.

No Figure Of Destiny ?

I could see dropping a Serra. I prefer 4 but would not argue swapping one for something else. LtF is pretty bad with Thalia which is an allstar in many matches.

As for FoD, I like it but the spots are limited... What would you remove? Dryad militant and SoW are superior in the modern meta imo. Maybe a case could be made for Serra.

Posted another 4-0 in tonight's Modern Daily event #8373591

Played vs breach, burn, tron, and hivemind in the finals.

Some observations..
-Stoney silence won me the game vs tron singlehandedly, would like to fit in a 2nd copy somewhere even though it's a nonbo with vial it's worth it.
-Often the 4x pte just isn't enough removal- in the burn matchup grim lava just wrecked me and I never drew removal. But what to add? 1x sunlance? Eek...
-Hivemind only plays 1 basic and in my 2nd game vs they played t1 basic forest. I'm holding 2 ghost quarters in hand but no Leonin. No matter, ghost quarter away! Gave me the few extra turns I needed to win and kept him down to 4-5 mana.

How would these cards fare in this kind of deck:
Porcelain Legionnaire, Soldier of the Pantheon, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Mardu Woe-Reaper, Precinct Captain, Knight of the Holy Nimbus, Crusader of Odric ?
And these instants: Guardians' Pledge and Break of Day ?

I'm currently trying to build a budget version of the deck and here is what I've come up with:


I considered swapping out some Plains for Sejiri Steppe or Forbidding Watchtower but I don't want to slow it down too much.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

How would these cards fare in this kind of deck:
Porcelain Legionnaire, Soldier of the Pantheon, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Mardu Woe-Reaper, Precinct Captain, Knight of the Holy Nimbus, Crusader of Odric ?
And these instants: Guardians' Pledge and Break of Day ?

I'm currently trying to build a budget version of the deck and here is what I've come up with:

mmmetaphor's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4x Accorder Paladin 4x Daring Skyjek 4x Dryad Militant 4x Knight of Meadowgrain 3x Crusader of Odric 4x Serra Avenger 4x Soldier of the Pantheon 4x Student of Warfare	3x Brave the Elements 2x Guardians' Pledge 4x Honor of the Pure 20x Plains

I considered swapping out some Plains for Sejiri Steppe or Forbidding Watchtower but I don't want to slow it down too much.

In that version I would suggest going Full on humans and playing Champion of the Parish. I'm not a fan of lands that EtB tapped in aggro decks. I'd stick with plains.

If I do it and replace 4x Dryad Militant with 4x Champion of the Parish, what do you suggest as replacement for: 4x Serra Avenger and 4x Knight of Meadowgrain ?

I guess I should also replace 2x Guardians' Pledge with 2x Gather the Townsfolk, right ?

Hmm... Off the top of my head I'd definitely run 4 Thalia but since you are budget I don't know if that's an option, she is superb in modern though and worth playing if you can get them. I'd also consider some number/combination of hero of Bladehold, Mirran crusader but again they may not be the gentlest cards on the budget. The new card spoiled from origins looks great for this style deck too, Kytheon, Hero of Akros.

You should add in the 4th Brave the Elements - it works against (red) mass removal, to let your creatures through, etc.

Also, no Path to Exile?

I dunno whether Serra Avenger is worth it if you're not playing Aether Vials...

So the changes I should make are:
-4x Dryad Militant, +4x Champion of the Parish
-4x Serra Avenger, +4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
-4x Knight of Meadowgrain, +2x Gather the Townsfolk and +2x Puncturing Light
-1x Honor of the Pure, +1x Brave the Elements

Path of Exile is too expensive for me so I picked Puncturing Light as a budget replacement ( I considered Journey to Nowhere but wanted something Instant).

Should I keep Guardians' Pledge in or add more removal or token production ?

I want to put in 2x Forbidding Watchtower to help with Daring Skyjek's battalion and pump further Crusader of Odric.

Let me put it this way - you have a few ways to play WW in modern.

1. Traditional/best cards. You just grab the most efficient beaters available, with the best support. You need things like Mirran Crusader, Hero of Bladehold, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, backed up by Vials and Paths. Obviously this is out due to budget.

Since you can't get the raw power from playing all the "best cards" you need your deck to be powerful through other methods:

2. Hatebears. Instead of playing powerful creatures, you play creatures that screw with the opponents very well. Leonin Arbiter, Thalia, Aven Mindcensor, Kataki. I believe there is a thread around - look for something like "death and Taxes"

3. Internal synergies (i.e. choose a tribe) - Humans (Champion of the Parish, Student of Warfare); Knights (Knight Exemplar, the double striking Kithkin knight which I can't place); even Kithkin (Ballyrush Banneret) Note that you reach a "ceiling" with tribal decks quicker compared to either (1) or (2), in which, because there are only X number of tribal enablers and you end up playing suboptimal cards compared to (1) to take advantage of them, the best white tribal deck will be worse than the best WW deck with the best creatures. Cos in white we don't have the equivalent of Merfolk with like 5 2-mana lords or something, or Elves where every creature you drop is a land drop leading to Craterhoof Behemoth.

Of course, if your internal synergy is Tokens, then by all means load up on token producers and Intangible Virtue/Soul Warden. However, you should play black/white if playing tokens, because Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom.

Therefore, what you need is a focus - what flavour of WW are you playing? Then it's easier to suggest cards. Stuff that is awesome in Tokens may not be useful in Hatebears, for example.

Ofc, this assumes you're trying to tune your deck to the best level. If it's kitchen table, then grab what you like and play it. I remember I had a "blink" WW deck in Time Spiral era, back when combat damage was on the stack. Place combat damage on the stack, then rescue my guy with Whitemane Lion, turn expiring Calciderm into Dust Elemental - goooood times.

The general idea is to build a deck with many low-mana aggressive creatures and swarm the board to overwhelm the opponent as quickly as possible.

Playing a mono-color deck I obviously want to have synergy between the cards (mostly creatures).
And the last point is to keep the overall cost of the deck reasonably low: so no Brimaz, king of oreskos, Path to Exile, Aether Vial or Elspeth, Knight-Errant for now.

Hero of Bladehold is not out of the question but seems a bit mana intensive for an all-in kind of deck I have in mind (is this plan too risky?)
How is Odric, Master Tactician as an alternative ?

By the way, I have a playset of Mirran Crusader.

The deck looks like this now:



Is Guardians' Pledge a good card that is worth keeping or should I replace it with:
1x Honor of the Pure and 1x Gather the Townsfolk
or 2x Devouring Light or 2x Journey to Nowhere

All those soldiers and no War Falcon?

I thought about it, do you think that it is better than Soldier of the Pantheon in this deck?
I might include it instead of Gather the Townsfolk though...

I would run war falcon over daring skyjek. One less power, but hits one turn sooner and has flying regardless.

If you're going to run removal, you have several options that aren't path to exile.

At one mana, you have oust, condemn, or sunlance. Not great, but they are cmc 1.

At two mana, you have journey to nowhere, temporal isolation, pacifism, reprisal, valorous stance, puncturing light, etc.

At three mana, you have a whole host of options, you've already noted devouring light, but at that cmc, I would rather run unmake or crib swap. Either one removes the problem, permanently, end of story. If you need a wider option, you could likewise run oblivion ring or banishing light.

I would definitely be rocking at least two of those mirran crusaders main. They are supremely good against removal not named lightning bolt, lightning helix, or path to exile. They swing past tasigur, siege rhino, tarmogoyf, and give many grixis and abzan decks the middle finger.

Would Imposing Sovereign be worth a couple slots in the main or SB?